| Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
|---|---|---|
| Goddess name "Haumea" | Hawaiian | Mother goddess. ] She is the daughter of PAPATUANUKU, the primordial earth mother, and is revered by many people of Polynesia and by the Maori of New Zealand. Her more notable children include PELE, the volcano goddess of Hawaii, and HI'AIKA, the goddess of the dance. As a deity responsible for birth, Haumea possesses a magical wand that she used at the time of creation to engender fruit trees and fish. From time to time she uses it to replenish stocks. Mythology also identifies her as a heroine who saved herself and her consort from enemies at the time of creation by hiding in a breadfruit tree and fending off the attackers with poisonous sap and wood splinters.... |
| Goddess name "Hine titama" | Maori | Goddess of the dawn Maori |
| Goddess name "Hine-Ahu-One" | Maori | Chthonic goddess Polynesia / Maori |
| Goddess name "Hine-Ahu-One (maiden formed of the earth)" | Polynesian / including Maori | Chthonic goddess. Engendered by the god TANE when he needed a consort because, with the exception of the primordial earth mother PAPATUANUKU, all the existing gods of creation were male. Tane created her out of the red earth and breathed life into her. She became the mother of HINE-ATA-UIRA.... |
| Goddess name "Hine-Ata-Uira" | Maori | Goddess of light Polynesia / Maori |
| Goddess name "Hine-Ata-Uira (daughter of the sparkling dawn)" | Polynesian / including Maori | Goddess of light. The daughter of the creator god TANE and HINEAHU-ONE. She did not remain a sky goddess but descended into the underworld, where she became the personification of death, HINE-NUITE-PO.... |
| Goddess name "Hine-Nui-Te-Po" | Maori | Giant goddess of death, of night and of the underworld. She married her father, fled in horror to the underworld when she found out and cursed humanity with death in retribution. Maori |
| Goddess name "Hine-Nui-Te-Po (great woman of the night)" | Polynesian / including Maori | Chthonic underworld goddess. Originally she was HINE-ATAUIRA, the daughter of TANE and HINE-AHUONE, but she descended to rule over the underworld. She is depicted in human form but with eyes of jade, hair of seaweed and teeth like those of a predatory fish.... |
| Goddess name "Marama" | Maori | Goddess of the moon Polynesia / Maori |
| Goddess name "Marama" | Polynesian / Maori | moon goddess. She equates with the Tahitian goddess HINA, daughter of TANGAROA. Tradition has it that her body wastes away with each lunar cycle but is restored when she bathes in the sea from which all life springs.... |
| Goddess name "Maui" | Polynesian / Maori / New Zealand | Tutelary god. Not a creator god but one who åśśists mankind in various supernatural ways. According to tradition he was aborted at birth and cast into the sea by his mother, who thought he was dead. He was rescued entangled in seaweed. He is the deity who drew the islands of New Zealand from the floor of the ocean in a net. Maui caught the Sun and beat it into submission, making it travel more slowly across the sky so that the days became longer. He also brought fire from the underworld for mankind and tried, unsuccessfully, to harness immortality for him by entering the vulva of the underworld goddess HINE-NUI-TE-PO while she was asleep. She awoke and crushed him to death. Though a deity, he had been made vulnerable to death by a mistake during his rites of birth (see also Balder). Also Mawi.... |
| Goddess name "Papa" | Maori | Goddess of the earth Maori |
| Goddess name "Papatuanuku" | Polynesian / including Maori | Chthonic mother goddess. According to tradition she evolved spontaneously in the cosmic night personified by TE PO and became the apotheosis of papa, the earth. In other traditions she was engendered, with the sky god RANGINUI, by a primordial androgynous being, ATEA. Paptuanuku and Ranginui are regarded as the primal parents of the pantheon who, through a prolonged period of intercourse, produced at least ten major deities as their children. In Maori culture Papatuanuku, like all deities, is represented only by inconspicuous, slightly worked stones or pieces of wood and not by the large totems, which are depictions of ancestors.... |
| Goddess name "Rongomatane" | Polynesian / including Maori | God of Agriculture. He is the father of cultivated food and the special gardener of the kumara or sweet potato which is a vital crop in Polynesia. In New Zealand the first sweet potatoes are offered to Rongomatane. In the traditions of the Hervey Islands, Rongo is one of the five sons of the moon god, Vatea, and the mother goddess, Papa.... |
| Goddess name "Ruamoko" | Polynesian / Maori | God of volcanoes and earthquakes. According to tradition, Ruamoko is the youngest son of RANGINUI and PAPATUANUXU and is possessed by a formidable temper. When his older siblings set about separating the prime parents from their eternal lovemaking in order to allow light into the space between sky and earth, he was enraged and his boisterous tantrum became revealed in the violence of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Ruamoko is of less importance than PELE, the chief volcano goddess of Polynesia, who is revered mainly in Hawaii.... |
| Goddess name "Tane(mahuta)" | Polynesian / including Maori | God of light. One of the children of the prime parents RANGINUI and PAPATUANUKU. Also god of trees, Forests and boat-builders, his consort is the goddess HINEAHU-ONE and he is the father of HINE-ATA-UIRA who descended to the underworld to become the goddess of death, HINE-NUI-TE-PO. In other traditions he is the consort of Hine-Nui-Te-Po, whom he joins each evening when he descends to the underworld. It was he who proposed that his parents should be pushed apart rather than slaughtered. In Maori culture Tanemahuta, like all deities, is represented only by inconspicuous, slightly worked stones or pieces of wood and not by the large totems, which are depictions of ancestors. Also KANE (Hawaiian).... |
| Goddess name "Tawhaki" | Polynesian / Maori | Heroic god. A descendant of the creator god Rehua and grandson of Whatitiri, the goddess of thunder, Tawhaki is the third child of Hema and Urutonga. He is the younger sibling of the goddess Pupu-mai-nono and the god Karihi. In some Polynesian traditions Tawhaki is thought of as a mortal ancestor whose consort was the goddess Tangotango on whom he fathered a daughter, Arahuta. Tawhaki's father was killed during tribal warfare with a mythical clan known as the Ponaturi and he himself was the subject of jealous rivalry concerning the goddess Hine-Piripiri. During this time attempts were made to kill him. He fathered children by Hine-Piripiri, including Wahieroa, who is generally perceived as being embodied in comets.... |
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